Creative Corner: The Power of Taglines

As always, the Direct Marketing Association’s Conference and Exhibition has a theme. This year it’s “Customers Are on a Journey: Be the Destination!”

I suppose I understand that. It’s a bit of a reach—and a command without a benefit—but at least I know what it means. Customers are looking for something, and your product should be it. It’s a tagline, and I love taglines.

My all-time favorite tagline came from a tech company that wanted people to know its geniuses used their brain power to create brilliant products. So it came up with the tagline “Out of our minds.”

My favorite spoof tagline was Jerry Della Femina’s idea for Panasonic: “From those wonderful folks who gave you Pearl Harbor.”

Great taglines have three things in common:
1. You see them;
2. You understand them;
3. You connect them to the company.

For instance, everyone can fill in the blanks in these taglines:
The _____ of beers.
Just _____ it.
A _____ is forever.
Reach out and _____ someone.
Fly the _____ skies.

One cigarette company pulled off a miracle when five letters, L.S.M.F.T., became a tagline many of us knew and understood. (For those of you who have forgotten or are too young to have seen the campaign, the letters stand for: “Lucky Strikes Means Fine Tobacco.”)

But taglines can do more than merely jog the consumer’s memory about your company.

Taglines Strengthen the Brand Promise

Coming up with memorable, distinctive and relevant taglines that succinctly summarize your product or service can be tricky. But when done well, the right tagline makes the promise of the brand so much stronger.

I’ve been thinking about this for our own Mason & Geller brand. My assistant, Theresa, recently was looking at our Web site and said, “You know, our Web site says this:About Us
Mason & Geller is a full service direct response agency providing our clients with strategic direct marketing programs and execution. Our primary focus is on response rates and profitable results.